Hard of Heart
by The Jack of Spades
Summary: Metroid 3. Samus reaches the tail end of her journey through Maridia. The last bubble hatch in her path opens the way to an abandoned undersea vessel, a nest of mysterious eggs, and more than a mere brush with death.


Disclaimer: Samus Aran and everything else associated with Metroid III belongs to Nintendo. 

Maridia would be a mere memory after this, the final step. Well, the final _several_ steps. 

She had found out about the statue in Crateria and the meaning behind it all. Perhaps there was some sort of magic left on this planet, she reasoned. 

Samus had blundered upon that great golden tribute to the four most vicious creatures of Zebes in a watery little marsh pit near the outskirts of Crateria. She couldn't place a finger on exactly how she figured out that the statue was really a gateway to the Mother Brain. Plain old woman's intuition, perhaps? No, it had to have been the practical clues: the long metal shaft that preceded it, its location relatively close to the ruins of the old Tourian, and the fact that every time she'd destroyed one of those creatures, their likeness on the statue seemed to die with them. The golden color faded to a tarnished silver and then there was a hiss and a crackle, as the likeness cracked and a wispy sort of energy streamed out through the top. That statue was somehow connected to the life forces of those creatures. The next logical conclusion then, would be that once all those four creatures were destroyed the gateway would open. 

Not to mention, Samus really wanted to watch the likeness of Ridley, perched obnoxiously atop the other three, crack and fall apart. He deserved it for starting the whole mess. 

Samus hadn't spared the statue any more of her time before departing with the intention of seeking out the beasts. Her journey had taken her everywhere. Leave it to the Mother Brain to include a tour of the whole planet before opening the doors to its little hole. 

So here she was. The death of Kraid and the eerie ghost Phantoon were far behind her. Of course, the memories of the battles persisted, but the wounds had long since healed. She had two more monsters to take down and she wouldn't rest until they were wiped out. 

There was something rather peculiar about the bubble hatch before her, however. Through the airtight helm of her space suit, she studied it with green eyes, hard and piercing and ruthless. 

The wall around it was odd, too. It was surrounded by a layer of thick mud, at which the most plentiful element in Maridia---water---lapped away incessantly. From the looks of things, and from Samus' experiences in the past, the wall shining through the mud was really the exterior of a very large ship. The metal workings and design were unmistakable. She'd seen several modes of transport like this in museums throughout the galaxy. They were considered to be ancient artifacts, they were so old. What were they called? Oh yes, she remembered. 

_Submarines._ A human invention from long ago. 

How a submarine managed to wind up in Maridia was something Samus would probably never know. She reconciled with that rather easily, however. Mysteries never bothered her. Sentiment was her main rival...aside from Ridley and the Mother Brain. 

Maybe, she fathomed, there were humans once, here on Zebes. Who knew? In this galaxy anything was possible. Through all her comings and goings as a bounty hunter, she'd learned of and seen quite a few strange spectacles. 

This buried submarine probably suffered some kind of malfunction and crashed down here ages ago. _Imagine the mess that lurked inside,_ her mind warned her. For all the crabs and sea snails, those corpses would make a mighty nice treat. Gross, but as she could recall, she'd seen much worse. 

She aimed her laser cannon at the hatch and fired a single shot. Nothing. 

She furrowed her brow, more puzzled than annoyed, and fired again. 

Still nothing. 

_Strange..._ She mulled it over. If this was a ship at one point, a submarine, it probably had some sort of control configuration to open the hatch. Simple logic. She smiled. She lowered her cannon and walked closer to the door, inspecting the immediate area around it for some sort of keypad, some kind of device that would grant entry. 

Slightly off to her right, there was a little panel somewhat ajar. Samus pried it open and studied the keys. Aside from the normal nine-digit buttons, there was a large red square pad and, sitting above the entire tiny setup, a small black screen. Its blank state spoke volumes about its current inactivity. 

Well, what else could she do? 

_When in doubt, push the big red button._ She raised her finger, then smiled again uncontrollably. _God, that was lame. I'm sure Houston will get a kick out of it when he hears about it. "Yeah, I just pushed the big red button, and..."_

And she wouldn't be able to finish the story if she didn't get going, so she pushed it. 

On cue the screen lit up blue and the keypad buttons glowed faintly, the red one even brighter and the numbered keys a soft green. There was an indefinable whirring noise coming from somewhere, the heart of the sub maybe, as its mainframe came to life after what had to have been centuries of no use. 

The screen flashed a bit, the blue snapping from light to dark and back again, until finally a strange string of characters scrolled onto view. They were written vertically, Samus noted, from top to bottom. 

_Ugh, come on, I'm no linguist here!_

Frustrated now, she typed some random numbers on the keys, but nothing happened. 

_Shit. C'mon Samus, think of something..._

She tapped the red button again. The sounds of the computer system buzzed back at her lifelessly. 

_Well then, if you won't **let** me through, I'll just barge my way in!_

She reached into a small compartment in her suit and pulled out a round globe big enough to fill her entire palm. A power bomb. 

_For emergencies,_ she reminded herself. _Not to be used often. Could cause extensive physical damage, etc. etc._

Samus tugged at the upper and lower halves of the device and they moved apart partway, revealing the bright strip of a highly volatile core. She twisted the halves in opposite directions until she heard the reassuring click, then placed the bomb by the base of the bubble hatch. Knowing full well the potential range of just one power bomb, she ran in the opposite direction, reaching a wall of piping. She scurried up the network of metal tubes until she was at a perch high enough to avoid the bomb's devastation. She hid her eyes from the anticipated effect. 

_Should be, what, five, six more seconds now?_

The bright core of the bomb grew even brighter as the trapped energy inside expanded and sought release. The explosion was terrific, shaking the entire area that Samus was in. The pipes far beneath her feet quivered as if in fright. Sea creatures nestled in their network fled. A blinding circle of light spread from the point of the explosion and traveled all the way up the watery shaft. The water grew black and cloudy with smoke. 

_I'll have to wait 'til it clears..._

She clung to the pipe wall, her head craning around to watch as the bomb smoke spread throughout the entire submerged area, the water carrying the curling black trails further away from the point of explosion. 

_Did it work?_

When the blackness of the smoke had ebbed to a pale gray mist, Samus climbed down from the wall and investigated the blast site. The power bomb had worked; the wall of the bubble hatch was destroyed. Next to it, the computer system's screen was flashing red, indicating an unanticipated entry. 

But something was odd about the water that flowed from the now gaping entryway. Samus held up her hand, but the sensors located in the fingertips of her suit wouldn't be needed this time around. The water was cold, the kind of unoccupied cold that filled sunken vessels, abandoned buildings, and the remains of destroyed civilizations on dying planets. The chill of death. She could feel that right through her suit. 

_Well of course. It's expected. The thing **should** be abandoned by now._

Logic wasn't of much comfort to her, however. Something more subtle than that was warning her that entering the submerged sub could be a fatal move on her part. 

_Should I...?_

Why not; she was near the end of her journey through Maridia. She tried to focus her thoughts on all the extra bounty she'd be more than likely to collect, if she was fortunate enough to find anything precious in there. 

_Me, a treasure hunter?_

The idea sounded almost laughable. No, she was a professional killer, not some light-hearted over-inquisitive explorer with the intent of rocking the galaxy with startling discoveries. 

_Besides, it's probably just filled with old useless junk anyway._

Gripping either side of the destroyed hatch, Samus took one slow step at a time, absently kicking aside the charred shells of the used power bomb. From her current point of view, there was no light to be found inside. That would be a problem easily solved once she was in there; that much she knew. The helm of her suit had the necessary means of providing enough light. 

With a mighty heave she forced herself in against the current of cold water flowing outward. _This place hasn't been unsealed for years..._ Yet she could tell by her movements that it was filled to the top with water, which meant that something had found a way in here long ago, after the shipwreck. 

She turned on the lights near the crown of her helm. Two fairly wide, sharp yellow beams shot out into the darkness in the hopes of bouncing off some solid object. 

_C'mon,_ she thought, turning her head this way and that. Sure enough, there was a wall to her immediate right, but to her left and straight ahead there was nothing but more darkness. It was then that something glowing far off in the distance caught her eye---it was a blinding blue, a crackling current that couldn't possibly have been electric. If it were, the whole place would've been fried, including her. As Samus stepped closer to investigate the sight, she discovered that there were three of those beams, identical in color and size. When she focused her beams of light on them, it was revealed that they were laser cannons of some kind. The energy they were using was obviously plasma. 

Samus remembered when that was first explained to her. Plasma was an alternative to electricity, something developed centuries before she was born. Water or metal did not conduct its powers efficiently, so it would be safe to use on sea-faring vessels. It was generated from the cells of dead matter, plant and animal. 

Apparently, in this sub, there was some plasma left before the mainframe computer crashed. Turning on the ship's control panel had activated them. Sadly, they weren't bright enough to produce light. She wondered what their true purpose was. 

With plasma on her mind, she wasn't really thinking about where she was headed. Her next step was an ill-fated one. 

"Shit---!" 

She had been on a relatively short metal platform that broke off abruptly. Her bad step sent her tumbling over its edge, heading down to the bottom of the great sub, however far down that might have been. 

Her mind was racing. Instinctively she thrust out her arm, one of the worst things to do when one is falling. Weren't there supposed to be steps around here? _Or did the old crew of this tub in the sea just drop down into the ship? Maybe they weren't human after all..._

Her right hand had made contact with something; the moment Samus realized this, she clung to it for dear life. For the next several minutes that was all she did: remain still, dangling off that unidentifiable something. When her head cleared and her pulse slowed down, she focused her lights on it. 

A railing. A long, twisted, slightly rusty metal railing. Looking upward towards the hatch, which offered some light however feeble, she saw that the railing was attached to the small platform she'd been standing on. 

_The ship had fallen apart! I should've known..._

A good four or five feet over her head, a section of the railing had been eaten away by corrosion. The railing was a hollow tube and Samus was dangling by nearly a thread. It wouldn't be enough to support the weight of her suit for very long. 

She didn't notice this, however. She aimed the lights on her helm down towards her feet and discovered that the bottom was now in sight. It appeared to be a bed of sand and gravel, spattered with long metal plates here and there. From her position high above, their dimensions were hard to judge, but she assumed that they might have been a walkway at one point or another. The easy way down had collapsed. 

And now, the only way down would follow. 

Without warning the metal railing broke in half, leaving Samus clinging to the falling half as it plunged toward the bottom. Acting on a whim, she tore herself from the piece of descending debris and flung herself away from those plates, seeking a softer landing. The watery environment cut down on the speed of her fall. Nevertheless, it wasn't enough to prevent her from dropping like a stone onto the floor, or what she assumed _was_ the floor. As she had seen from above, it was all sandy, from wall to wall. 

Grains of sand clung to the visor of her helmet before the sloshing water pulled them away. Samus just lay there now, hoping her suit was in one piece. 

_Can't lose focus now... I'm at the ship bottom..._

Slowly, she braced herself with her hand and her laser cannon and boosted herself upright. In the near-complete darkness, she tested her suit, making sure everything was still functioning. Her best guess was that it had been a ten-foot drop. The only thing that had really suffered in her fall was a few power bombs. They were in the compartment in her suit on the side where she had landed; two were smashed far beyond use. Unlike the others, they were ominously dark. Samus tossed them aside, somewhere into the shadows. 

Her eyes glided up towards the blasted-open hatchway. How would she get back up there? 

_The hi-jump boots. I can clear more than twenty feet when they're activated, I think._

She turned her head away from the opening, hoping she was right. 

She was closer to the plasma beams now, she noticed. They loomed a good six feet or so overhead. A closer inspection in the rays of her lights revealed very little else besides what she already knew. There were more than three originally, however. A forth one was out at the far end. 

Samus also found tunnels in the wall ahead of her. All of them were close to the bottom where she was. Some had been obviously man-made corridors built into the sub itself; others were ragged tears in its thick hull. That warned of only one thing. 

_...But nothing seems to be in here really..._

But she felt life. She felt the strange pulse of something living here in the depths of this wreck. With all the water in here, it surely couldn't have been human, and she doubted if it was intelligent. 

_Where is it coming from?_

The bottom, of course. Gravity would back up that logic. She scoured the sandy pit with her lights until they came upon a smooth, spherical object in one of the dark corners. She drew closer. Her lights revealed more and more of the objects, which were eggs. Giant eggs. Each one was roughly the size of a small human child. 

For a moment her heart skipped a beat. _Oh no. Not Metroid eggs..._

But in the water? _Be reasonable, woman,_ she chided herself. Metroids didn't thrive in water. She wasn't even sure if they could. 

_But they can't drown either, not to my knowledge._

There was no nest that contained those eggs, which totaled in number to around half a dozen. Only a shallow depression in the sandpit kept them together. Whatever laid them must have been huge. 

Suddenly, a squeal. It was easily heard in the sub's silence. Samus searched for the source of the sound, analyzing it from memory. Metroid? No, not possibly. It couldn't be those rabid Mochtroids either, those Metroid clones gone wrong. The Space Pirates' initial failures to successfully reproduce Metroids had led to such monstrosities, which favored the moist locations of areas like Maridia. They were hardly a threat, especially when compared to the real thing. 

A stream of telltale bubbles emerged from out of nowhere. 

_Aha..._

Samus shone her lights on the bubbles and found a spiky green shell down at her feet, stirring in the sand. A muscular tail emerged, tipped by a very venomous thorn. 

_Hey, I think I saw these a while back..._

Evirs. Samus thought she'd spotted one or two in Maridia's quicksand marshes, but she dismissed her sightings as flukes. Evirs were rare creatures, called swimming scorpions by some because of their lethal tails. They were, however, much larger than an actual scorpion. This little one at Samus' feet had to have been only a baby; it was hardly bigger than the eggs she'd seen earlier. 

_So that's what those were... Evir eggs. What a relief; I almost thought they were more Metroids..._

One kidnapped hatchling was quite enough, apart from the Mother Brain. 

The green shell squirmed in the sand until it was able to break free. It bobbed up and down in place right before Samus, its round red eyes staring back at her, unblinking. 

_Are you the only one?_ she thought. 

Samus kept her lights away from its eyes. She didn't know how long it had been down in here, but it probably had some sensitivity to brightness. Most sea-dwelling animals did. 

One by one, more Evirs emerged from the sand. They'd been sleeping until Samus had stirred them awake. Pretty soon the bounty hunter found herself surrounded by seven or eight of them, all with the same eight legs, heavy shells, and powerful tails. Were they intelligent enough to be curious of her? It didn't take Samus too long to find out. One Evir had swum up to her and gently tapped her visor with a lone claw. Its interest was almost childlike. Samus felt her heart go soft on her. 

"Oh damn. Look what you guys are doing to me. Go on, get outta here!" She waved them away with her laser cannon. By accident she raised her head and brought her lights to their eyes; there was a chorus of irritated squeaking before the Evirs disappeared, faster than Samus would have given them credit for. 

_Damn, they're fast._

She followed the trail of bubbles that marked their path and found them in the corner opposite the nest of eggs. They were all huddled against each other. This time, Samus remembered to keep her lights low. 

She crouched down on one knee and tried to coax them towards her. "C'mon. C'mon, I'm not gonna hurt ya..." _If I wanted to, I would've done so by now, rest assured._

Something struck her then. 

One Evir was backed up against the sub wall, its claws curled around its bulging yellow belly defensively. It was as if the creature was aware of its weakness there. But that posture... It reminded Samus instantly of a certain sight in Crateria. 

_The statue... The figure on the bottom..._

Yes, one of the last two golden figures that Samus had yet to destroy. She was positive now that it was an Evir. The shell, the belly, the claws... She had to have been thickheaded not to see it. It was right in front of her now. These hatchlings were the third enemy of the statue. Therefore, they had to be destroyed. 

"Oh, God..." Samus backed away then suddenly, retracting her hand. Could she? Could she really...? 

She stood up tall then. 

_But they're **harmless**! Look at them. How could anything this innocent be something I have to destroy? Unless..._

Unless it was a test of guts. The others had been of strength and Samus was sure that the fight with Ridley would test her cunning. She knew that from the past. This then, would test her ability to overcome her own emotions. 

Instantly she thought of the Metroid hatchling and how she'd failed to destroy that back on SR388. 

_But that was different! Metroids are actually truly intelligent life forms. And they're beneficial; the scientists at Ceres proved that. And that one...that one made a mother out of me, sort of. I couldn't really kill something that depended on me like that. These things...they're different. They don't need me...and I don't need them._

She called upon her battle-hardened strength, the virtue with which she eradicated all hostile life on SR388 a while back. Yes, it would be for good in the end. Samus couldn't move on unless the golden statue had no more life forces to hold it up. These Evirs had to go. 

And what was it that she'd heard one time, from a galactic zoologist? Evirs... They could be foul-tempered. She had heard no mentioning of their curiosity, but she'd heard quite a bit about how big they grew and how some had stung sea-divers off foreign shores to death. The females were the worst by far; on one planet they were called draygons, which in some reptilian tongue translated to a very unflattering calling for a female. 

Swimming scorpions...for more than one reason. They were deadly. Killing them would be a blessing. 

_I don't think they're native to Zebes. The Space Pirates must've brought them here._

While Samus sat there mulling over things, the Evirs had regained their confidence and had swum up to her again, poking at things. They seemed to float in the water with the aid of their great tails, which swished to and fro mechanically. One of the reckless ones had managed to climb onto her helm and sting its eyes in Samus' blinding beams. It shrieked and retreated. 

The Evirs formed a wall around Samus now, resembling a bunch of curious little kids. They were chattering amongst themselves now; their clicking reminded Samus of those silly recordings of whale songs that she'd seen in an oddity shop during one of her missions. 

_Why people listen to that stuff is beyond me._

Not really, her conscience defied her. She could understand now what the appeal was. It came from knowing that there were other creatures out there that didn't walk on two legs like most other species and were inquisitive and clever. And had a language of their own to boot. 

"Go on! Scat! I don't have time for this!" Samus backed away from the horde of Evirs, still grappling with her duty to destroy them. After Ridley had stolen the Metroid hatchling, Samus had sworn never to let her emotions get in the way of her duty ever again, and she meant every word of her oath. She couldn't possibly repeat the same mistake now. 

And there were other things to worry about, like whether or not the power of her hi-jump boots could thrust her back up to the hatch. And... 

_And the draygon of this nest. There has to be one. These eggs just didn't get here by themselves. Sure, I don't know a damn thing about animals, but I do know that all mothers are protective of their young. It's a female instinct. If one just happens to find me near her nest..._

Samus swatted at the Evirs, keeping them away. She didn't want to frighten them off with her beam, but then again, her mission called for more than just frightening them. She'd have to overcome her soft spot for the sake of her duty. Work before feelings, work before love, work before everything, she chanted in her mind. _A soft heart doesn't put food on my table._

Before Samus could return to her metal struggle, the pack of Evirs had vanished. Once more, a trace of bubbles marked their hasty departure. 

_Something...scared them off..._

There was a low rumble like that of distant thunder, coming from one of the passages in the ship hull. The entire water-filled vessel vibrated. 

_Um, that wouldn't be, by any chance---_

Samus aimed her lights at each tunnel she could find. The first two were fairly small and couldn't have been sources of such a sound. Again, another rumble, yet this time it was softer. Samus continued to check out the tunnels, feeling the urge to flee creep into her veins. If she was right about that sound... 

_Then it's the mother coming to defend her babies. I certainly don't feel like wasting my energy trying to control parental wrath right now. _

Unless...unless the **draygon** is the third likeness on the statue... 

It could be. In fact, Samus confirmed it for herself when she aimed her lights onto another tunnel, one of the larger, more ragged-looking ones. A large green head pitted with breathing holes and studded with thorns poked through that opening. 

Its crayfish-like shell was marked with scars and provided a home for a few stray barnacles. The Draygon was _huge_, maybe three or four times bigger than Samus herself, while not being quite as large as the massive Kraid. She moved slowly through the tunnel as was befitting for a creature her size. When her eyes were hit with Samus' beams, she gave a loud cry and quickly backtracked. 

Samus braced herself. Judging by the size of that thing, she'd be in for a good long fight. _C'mon old girl, come out of your hole now..._ She kept her lights away from the tunnel. 

Darkness now. She'd left her enemy in darkness. Not a good idea. 

_But it's my only choice right now._

She thought it would be a while before the Draygon would come out of that passage, so she used her time to try and locate the young Evirs she'd found earlier. 

She'd misjudged the Draygon's speed greatly. It was amazingly fast. After the much-despised light source was out of the way, she did the first thing a distressed mother would do: she went to her nest to check her eggs. But her babies ended up catching her eye first. They had rushed forth to greet her; they numbered among the survivors of her first clutch of offspring. 

Samus heard the affectionate squeals and aimed her beams low, trying to pick up a low-lying tail or some hint of their location without scaring them away again. Sure enough she found them, the whole family, one big mess of tails and spikes and long, spider-like arms. 

She shone her lights on the group of them again, hoping to isolate the Draygon from her harmless hatchlings. The squeals sounded again and the family split apart. Samus ran towards the nest, knowing that the Draygon would follow her. 

She was playing with fire, however. The Draygon hadn't followed her to the nest; she'd beaten her there, arriving first and cutting Samus off. The bounty hunter came eyeball-to-eyeball with the giant sea-beast. She was so close that she could see every individual blood vessel in those astoundingly intelligent eyes. 

"Oh, God." The words just fell from her mouth automatically. The Draygon up close was enough to inspire a week's worth of nightmares. Her mouth was one large, gaping orifice lined with feelers and she kept her vulnerable belly safe behind a cage-like interweaving of limbs. She extended her head closer to Samus as if to study her, then drew back and shrieked in anger. 

Samus fled for cover, all the while trying to come up with a strategy. This was one very pissed-off female, and she'd need to be very wily if she wanted this to end successfully. She adjusted the controls of her laser cannon, switching to her missile reserves. To crack the shell of the Draygon wouldn't take an ordinary laser beam. And more than likely, she'd be best off targeting the soft stomach. 

She kept her lights up, trying to keep the Draygon within sight. But there was no one over the nest! It was vacated. 

She was knocked to the floor before she could think any more. From behind her, the Draygon had pelted her with a mouthful of sticky goo, a defensive secretion that was like spider webbing. Samus couldn't fathom what it was at first or why she couldn't move. Again, the Draygon's quickness left her with little time to ponder. The creature grabbed Samus with all eight of her legs and swam with her up to the ceiling of the chamber, at level with the platform and the hatch now. 

Samus felt herself going upwards at such a fast pace. Instinctively she tried to wriggle her way out of this new prison, but the Draygon's arms held her like eight bands of iron. Her arms were meshed between two pairs; the barrel of her laser cannon stuck out from between them. Trapped, like a wounded animal. And she still had no idea what was stuck to her suit like glue. 

"Let me GO, you BITCH!" 

She struggled, kicked, and tried to duck out of those immobile arms. Her wriggling had only increased the beast's fury. The Draygon pelted her legs with repeated blows of her almighty tail. Samus couldn't see it, but that deadly venomous talon was there somewhere, waiting to inject her with enough poison to kill a fully-grown Metroid. 

_LET ME GO!_

She kept on thrashing about, then tried to claw the arms that held her, all while futilely attempting to dodge the stinger that swept up at her legs. At one point she managed to wrap her ankles around part of the tail, but the Draygon wrenched herself free with ease. She was too strong for Samus, too powerful. 

But just how smart _was_ her kind...? 

The Draygon had swum with Samus towards one of the plasma beams mounted on the wall, which gave the bounty hunter an idea. Plasma was a lethal weapon. If she could somehow force the Draygon to come in contact with it... But no, the creature automatically avoided light and anything that produced it. There had to be a way around her instincts... 

What could draw the beam _to_ Samus? What could she use to harness its energy? 

As the side of the Draygon's tail came crashing into her legs, she was struck simultaneously with an idea: the grappling beam. 

Unlike the other laser types in her arsenal, the grappling beam used a magnetic current to draw the weapon's bearer towards any metallic object or source of energy. Samus had used it to cross the ruins of the wrecked ship back up on Crateria. If she could use it now to harness the active plasma beams here, she just might be able to turn her own suit into a weapon. 

Her pulse throbbed in her ears. Hopefully the Draygon's attacks hadn't damaged her suit beyond repair already. She wasn't sure what condition her legs were in, only of the terrible pain that overtook them. This bad-tempered draygon had to be put out of its misery. 

So she waited. It was the only thing she could do at this point. She had to wait until the Draygon swam close enough to the plasma beams so she could take her chance with the grappling beam. However, if she missed... 

The Draygon's movements in the water were unusually fast for something of her girth. In the oceans of Maridia, she was a queen. She swam around in circles, batting away at Samus' legs with the most powerful weapon in her arsenal, trying to land a whack with her venomous thorn. The plasma beams were none of her concern. She had lived in this sub wreck for a while now; she was accustomed to them. 

One of the plasma beams was in reach now. Samus braced herself. Her legs were singing with pain. 

It was as close as she would get. She jerked the muzzle of her gun around in the Draygon's grasp, locking onto the right setting...and fired. 

The crackling burst of blue energy cut through the murky water. It headed in the general direction of the plasma beam...but wound up missing it. Instead, the beam struck the metallic sub wall and stuck there. 

Automatically, the beam pulled Samus towards its target. The magnetic force was incredibly strong, even stronger than the Draygon, who had to come along for the ride. Both females smashed into the wall, but the Draygon had injured the knuckles of her claws. She emitted an ear-shattering squeal of pain and released Samus. The bounty hunter plummeted to the sandy floor, the water being the only thing present to make her fall bearable. 

She landed on her back. The Draygon was high above her, wailing terribly. 

_Shit, I can't believe I missed._

There would be another try, however. Yet this time, Samus would be prepared. She gave her arm cannon a quick look-over before taking careful aim at the plasma beam of choice. This next move would take perfect timing on her part. If she acted too soon, she'd harness the energy before the Draygon grabbed her, and the result might cause a splash of light that would drive the giant Evir away. 

Patiently, she bided her time. Sure enough, the Draygon recovered and swept down to grab her once more. 

Samus fired the grappling beam. 

The current shot right past the Draygon's head and met up with the plasma beam the moment the creature's arms were around her again. The grappling beam did as Samus had surmised. It drew the energy from the beam to Samus' suit, turning it into a great ball of pulsing energy. The sheer force of the blow stunned the Draygon. She gave voice to her pain using one great, drawn-out squeal, followed by more and more and more still, like a tortured banshee. 

There was great risk in doing this, Samus knew. Her suit might end up being totally destroyed, but the list of alternatives was short. Besides, she had already carried the plan out. She couldn't turn back now. There was only Ridley left after this. 

_Only Ridley..._

Through the violent trembling of her suit, Samus cracked a smile. _Yes, we'll meet again shortly, once this is all over._

The Draygon's feverishly twitching form fell limp suddenly. Immediately Samus closed off her grappling beam. It was over now. 

She clawed her way up to her feet; the Draygon's corpse fell forward, lifeless, eyes half-open. Samus trained her lights on it; there was no response. She was dead. 

She stared at the giant body, claws and tail limp, its skin still sizzling and the shell even smoking slightly from the frying plasma. She kicked at its shell with her foot...or at least tried to, before her knee locked and she fell over, gritting her teeth. Her legs, the attack... She'd nearly forgotten. She'd been on her back on the sand when she delivered the Draygon her final blow. 

_Damn...are they broken...?_

No, they couldn't have been. She'd been able to stand up before. 

_But they sustained damage. How much is what I'd like to know right now. And the suit, too..._

There would be no way to tell until she got back to her ship and hooked it up to its computer system to run a diagnostic check. As for her legs, she'd inspect them there too, in the only area on Zebes where she could survive without the protection of her armor. The planet's surface atmosphere was composed primarily of toxins. 

She crawled away from the Draygon's corpse, her lights still on. It was then that she finally rediscovered the young Evirs. All that commotion had driven them into the tunnels for protection. They were now returning, thanks to the reprise in silence. Their first destination was the form of their mother, lying still in the sand. 

Curiously they swam around her body, poking, squealing, trying to coax a response. None ever came. They persisted in this behavior for the next several minutes and Samus watched them, a little touched. 

_She's dead, guys; hang it up._

After a time, the hatchlings did give up. They fell all around their mother's corpse and began digging into the sand with their little claws. As Samus continued to look on, the Evirs heaped sand atop the body, more and more, over and over again. The process seemed as though it would take forever, but the creatures worked at near lightning speed and didn't break from their task until it was finished. Samus sat back, allowing her legs to recover a bit, watching as the burial was performed. Fifteen minutes later, the Draygon's lifeless form lay under a heap of sand, with her young ones now swimming to the top of it to rest. All eight of them sat on the peak of the bulge and looked down at Samus. Their eyes were expressionless, but... 

_Do they know what I did? Seems like they understand death..._

For a moment the bounty hunter expected them to launch an attack of their own, but they had let her down in that respect. Rather, they simply stared at her. 

Evirs were nothing but trouble, the woman reasoned as she finally climbed to her feet once more. A sharp twinge of pain coursed through her leg muscles, subsiding into a dull ache not too long after. She'd be able to make it back to Crateria, she thought. She'd force herself to make the distance. She had to do it. And also, she wanted another peek at that statue, now that the Draygon was gone. 

She turned to go...and it was then that her eyes fell upon the nest of eggs. 

_What to do about those...?_

Samus threw a look at the young Evirs behind her. Certainly, there had to have been one or two females among them who would grow to be draygons one day. They were apparently intelligent to some degree, but like all intelligent beings, they had an immense capacity to be ruthless and destructive. 

_Like the Metroids..._

They had to go. Samus couldn't risk having to return to Zebes after the Metroid mission to deal with an Evir attack. She was growing fed up with the planet as it was. 

She aimed her laser at the nest of eggs. 

_Shouldn't I get rid of the babies first though?_

Yes of course. Pure logic again. Samus turned around and pointed the cannon barrel at them now. And hesitated. 

_What am I doing? C'mon, just shoot them!_

The Evirs didn't move. They just continued to stare at her. 

_Intelligence, my ass! Can't you guys seem I'm ready to blast you into goop?_

Still no movement. Only stillness, staring, contemplation maybe...and maybe even remorse. Samus couldn't help but wonder about it. 

No... She couldn't kill them. They were innocent. And look at how they remained there, as if waiting to die alongside their mother. It bothered Samus. _Fine._ She let them go. She'd gotten to know them too well and formed an attachment. She'd made that mistake before and she did it again. She couldn't time-travel back to fix it, so she would deal with it accordingly. 

"Go on! Go! Shoo! Get outta my sight!" She moved towards the Evirs and waved her arm at them. A few stirred, but none actually moved. Samus shone her lights on them and that did the trick. The group of them fled for cover, squealing as they had done the last time. Samus turned back to the eggs. 

_But these I didn't get to know, and I'm not going to extend my attachment to them. The less Evirs, the better. My mercy has its limits._

Yet she couldn't help but feel a little sad as she took aim...and fired. 


End file.
